Her husband--" "Hadn't a penny-piece, I believe: pawned her own mother's jewels and gambled 'em away; thereupon left her, as a dog his cleaned bone." The little man laid a hand on his collar, and as the doctor stooped whispered low and rapidly in his ear.
Their colloquy was interrupted.
"I'll adopt that child!" said Captain Runacles from the hearth.
He spoke aloud, but without turning his head.
Captain Barker hopped round, as if a pin were stuck into him.
"You!--adopt Meg's boy!" "I said that." "But you won't." "I shall." "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Jemmy; but I intend to adopt him myself." "I know it.

You were whispering as much to the Doctor there." "You have a little girl already." "Precisely.

That's where the difference comes in.

This one, you'll note, is a boy." "A child of your own!" "But not of Meg's." Captain Runacles turned in his chair as he said this, and, reaching a hand back to the table, drained the last bottle of burgundy into his glass.

His face was white as a sheet and his jaw set like iron.
"But not of Meg's," he repeated, lifting the glass and nodding over it at the pair.
His friend swayed into a chair and sat facing him, his chin but just above the table and his green eyes glaring like an owl's.
"Jemmy Runacles, _I_ adopt that boy!" "You're cursedly obstinate, Jack." "Having adopted him, I shall at once quit my profession and devote the residue of my life to his education.